Shamans and Dreams: Part One

This week we explore your nighttime dreams and how shamans interpret them. “There are many valid and useful systems of thought through which to interpret our dreams,” explains host and shaman, Christina Pratt. “It is helpful to understand that there are different types of dreams and to select the appropriate system to use to interpret them. Carl Jung believed that dreams are important gateways to unknown parts of ones self. Jungian dream interpretation is based on the belief that dreams are a direct message from the personal unconscious delivered through the archetypes of the collective unconscious. Working with the dreamer’s symbolic associations the dreamer’s system is accessed. The most important symbolic associations are gathered and combined to give a holistic view of the dream's meaning. Shamans also believe that our dreams are messages, but that the “sender” of the dream may or may not be your personal unconscious. It depends on the type of dream you just had. Dreams can be sent by your spirit, your helping spirits, or by energies that seek to block or divert you from your destiny. We can learn to discern the form, intensity, and sensory quality of our dreams, the type of dream, and how to best interpret it. In this way we can learn whether the dream message is a teaching, a warming, or an intrusion clouding our vision to our soul’s true purpose.